Fool
by shipperofinsanity
Summary: Hermione Granger is not the same and never will be. Nor has she been, not for several long years of her life. Due to one man, one she no longer has. And it has shattered her, broken her, and given Christmas an entirely new meaning. [Dramione One-Shot]


Christmas.

She supposed it wasn't Christmas she hated so much as the way people celebrated it. There were the carolers, who literally went door-to-door and just started singing, which could be pleasant if they were good or even just cheerful but generally were a bit annoying. And then there were the people who recieved them, either graciously or with a slammed door in their faces. There were the people who wished everyone a Happy Christmas and those who received them; there were those who were just glad that something happy was being shouted their way and those who got offended by lack of anything else in the statement. There were the gift-givers, who tried their best but usually weren't successful, and there were the people who recieved them; the liars who said they were happy with their horrible gift and the honest ones everyone hated for being upset about their gift and vocal about it. It seemed no matter what you did during this holiday, no matter how hard you tried or how happy you were or how open-minded you stayed to others, someone was always offended, and always fighting.

Maybe it was that everyone referred to it as a somewhat universal day of happiness and peace, when in reality there were still people starving to death or getting lost or murdered or losing their homes or families. Tragedies don't stop to make way for a period of joy. It's the other way around. And that never changes, but everyone makes it seem like on this one day of the year, everything's okay.

Of course, this was also the day of the year her husband died. That might have something to do with it.

She remembered every tiny detail. She thought over every small action, miniscule event, infinitesimal line of dialogue that transpired between the two of them and everyone else involved. The cold bit at her as she did so, nipping at her nose and ears so they were unevenly red, though not as swollen as her eyes. Or the lump in her throat hat her breath seemed to catch on further with every step. And she stepped quickly, moving as fast as she could to be done with it, with this. So when she came to the graveyard, passed people who whispered as they saw her and drew their blinds, people who gave her sad looks and murmured to their friends and family, passed houses and homes and love, she was gasping for breath and sputtering as her eyes, hot and stinging with saltwater, loosed the first tear that slid down her cheek, warming one tiny ember of what used to be a fire in her eyes and sending a tremor running down her spine.

She trembled as she stood before his grave. She quaked as she bent down to wipe off the snow hastily, and shivered as she wiped her own eyes. She shook as she read the words and the second tear fell, which was the gateway tear. Many people could cry one tear and get under control again, and she was one of them. Not many could make it past the second without opening the floodgate. She was also one of them. And so her cheeks were coated with hot, stinging tears, and her face pulled tightly against itself, and she choked and sobbed and quivered as she stood, trying so hard to hold herself together that she shattered from her own too-tight grip.

_Draco Malfoy_  
_June 5, 1980 - December 25, 2005_  
_Son, Husband, Friend_

And in her own writing, she'd carved into the stone with her bare hands and a crude knife and no magic because it was too easy, too painless, was the word 'Fool' next to 'Friend'.

_"Why can't they just accept that he's dead?!" Hermione screeched in frustration, her wand in her hand gripped with so much strength her whole hand and not just her knuckles were white. "Gone, never coming back, dead!" Her back was pressed against Draco's, and with the hand not currently brandishing the thing keeping them alive, she held his, their fingers locked together as if a lifeline of the other._

_"They need a purpose!" he answered her, though it had been a rhetorical question, and she felt the insane urge to laugh and cry at the same time; she did neither and instead deflected another spell. All around them were masks upon dark robes, swirling, spells flying randomly, taking down her wards, destroying their home, knocking dishes off her shelf and sending Crookshanks diving under a desk to protect himself. "Something to fight for!"_

_"No, they do not!" she shrieked. "You don't need to fight for anything! They want a purpose, they can have one! How about _change for the better_?!"_

_And Draco laughed then, the sound misplaced among the catastrophe filled with broken plates and hissing cats and threats and spells being bellowed, but relaxing enough to her that defending themselves with one more ward for a minute didn't sap too much bottled strength. "That's my purpose," he reminded her, "and trust me, I am fighting for it." She felt like hugging him, but he was being a (remarkably sincere) fool, and that ought not to be rewarded; of course, they were probably both going to die, but still, her standards stood._

Hermione shouted something incomprehensible even to her, and then refrained from doing so again out of fear of someone else hearing, someone besides the entire town that was peering in to this moment. Even now she couldn't escape who she was. Who she was was the wife of Draco Malfoy and best friend of Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley and someone everyone both admired and pitied. For three-hundred and sity-four days a year she kept herself together, retained perfect countenance, smiled and laughed and said she was healing. She wasn't. Her appearances were always off and never noticed. But on this day, on just this one day, nobody should, would, or could stop her from letting all that fall away and her entire self crumble.

And so for the past three years she had come here on Christmas day to relive the time when she had been unwrapping her gift from Draco and they'd been attacked by Death Eaters. And then slowly, slowly, she moved back in time so she could remember when it had all started. But she wasn't there yet. She'd only just started.

_Wedding vows. Hermione had always thought them beautiful, perfect, eloquent, and so stunning, because they were always so meaningful and better yet, they were meant. She never thought she'd be saying her own to a man she'd thought the opposite of all those things for so long and the exact match to them for so short a period of time. Yet there he was, standing straight as ever, his blond hair slightly fussed, his gray eyes boring into hers and his smile illuminating the entire wedding hall._

_But she was saying them. Or rather, she needed to be. Everyone was waiting, but it was a bit difficult to remember what she'd planned to say when it was so easy to get distracted just looking at how the light hit his cheek, his jaw, and cast shadows that threw on -_

_Right. She needed to start. She was tempted to shake her head and clear it but didn't. That would not have ended well for anybody._

_"Draco," she said, fighting to remember the words, "I know a lot." He raised his eyebrows and quite obviously bit back laughter, and she had to bite her lip to keep from doing so, also, although many in the audience didn't hold back a chuckle. "But for the longest time, I didn't know anything. I thought I did. But I wass clueless. Because everything before this, before you, before anything had happened for us, nothing truly had anything behind it. Sure, you can back up a claim with facts or logical reasoning, but nothing had drive, motivation. Well, no, that's wrong. There was plenty of motivation. There was no passion. There were reasons to fight and I fought for them and every day was a war for me until you were there with a treaty. But I was always reluctant, careful, planning every hole and disturbance down to the last second so nothing could go wrong. There was motivation. But there was no passion. You came, and suddenly there was passion, and I didn't just feel like I had to do these things, but like I wanted to. And not for reasons that were unjust, which were why I think I hadn't felt them beforehand. I wanted to fight for the peace that followed and not for the thrill of it or for victory. I wanted to win because I knew my winnings would bring less pain to others. I wanted to rise up and have people look at me, because you made me feel like I was worth looking at. And I... I can't ever thank you enough for that, and I suppose shackling you to me for life is a pretty poor repayment, but it's all I've got."_

_Draco actually rolled his eyes, and didn't heed the formalities, when he reached up under her viel to wipe off one crystalline tear that had formed at the corner of her eye. "It's more than enough," he assured her as he pulled his thumb back, kissing the liquid away and making her beam at him with more light than the sun, and he was dazzled, gazing at her like a fool gazed at a bad idea - with reverence and awe._

"No, no," Hermione groaned, feeling each single word of memory as if written on paper, but the writer used too much force and had stabbed the paper in question so she was pierced horrible, holes growing in her where she'd once been complete.

_"Marry me," he blurted, and she looked at him quizzically. She ought not to have been surprised, she guessed, but honestly she had expected him to propose somewhere a little less... casual. Not that she was disappointed. Her head was still reeling - as were other parts - and she was still panting for breath, her skin flushed and sweating and beside his, his arm over hers so his elbow was on top like he'd just been, his bare chest not covered by the sheets anymore like hers. She placed a hand on her stomach gently at the words, her heart skipping a beat and then racing ahead, and she smiled. He didn't have a ring and he wasn't down on one knee and he wasn't promising her anything, but after that, it was hard for her to say no to anything, not that she wanted to._

_"Sure," she responded, and he laughed through his own deep breaths, and she couldn't resits teasing him once more with, "Fool."_

"No!" she exclaimed now, but her voice broke after the first touch of sound passed her lips and she ended up whispering. Why she shouted out against it, she had no idea, seeing as how it was the only way she ever made it through a year now, but she always did. Maybe in denial of him being gone. Considering the words she'd said the night he'd been killed, that made a small bit of sense. And hypocrisy. But she was a bit too busy falling apart to notice.

_And his familiar lips were on hers, pushing against her, but gently, tenerly, asking for permission, which she was quick to grant with her tongue, pushing through his own lips for the first time. They'd kissed before, of course, but it was always chaste, and though it had satiated them both long enough, she was restless, and it was obvious he was too, so she was going further._

_And then his arms were around her, crushing her to him, and she didn't mind, shoving him up against a wall so she was the dominant one, their lips moving together but separately, like their heartbeats, individuals but the same, always united. His hands had first grasped her waist but now moved up so they pulled at her back, pulled with all his strength so her ribs were crushed to his and his to her, and she was the one to help him start taking off the clothing between their skins. Adrenaline coarsed through every inch of her, drove her wild, and she found that there was a feral moan coming from her as his hands found her breasts, and she flung her head backward, and he buried his face in the same chest his fingers touched._

_Her leg hooked around his, and she pushed inward from the waist, feeling firm resistance there and being glad to find it was hardening. A tense ball of utter fierceness formed in her gut and her stomach muscles contracted and spasmed out so she was thrusting her hips onto him._

_And then her shirt was off and falling around their feet as she shrugged out of the sleeves, and she began unbuttoning his with the limied amount of space she had to move her fingers in. Opening her eyes seemed a crime, a heinous crime, especially when she could sense everything without sight; so she didn't open her eyes, but did bring her head back, dipping it to his neck and sucking as his shirt finally gave way and joined hers. His hands, still on her back, unclasped her bra, and he cupped her breasts so as she tugged the frabric over her head, she leaned back in an arch and thrust again with her hips, his hand pressing and massaging against her, his figners already magic._

_The next few minutes were always difficult to remember, but somehow they collapsed onto the bed, and she was swaddled beneath sheets and blankets, the heat, having already been extreme, now so intense she groaned, but with pleasure, when his bareness thrust against her. He needed release, and so did she, and there was no waiting from either of them. They'd held back for months, now would not be different; an Hermione's hands were clutching his shoulders as he braced himself against her, so she could lift herself up to grind against him in a frenzy._

_His lips found hers again, and he teased her as she gyrated against him, his cock nestled between her lower lips but never entering, never thrusting, until she broke away from the kiss and whispered, her voice strained and tense, "Draco!"_

_And then he did enter and he thrust with so much force she screamed as he drove against her pussy - but it was of exhilaration, and as he pulled back she gasped his name again, and an animalistic growl tore from his mouth on hers as he thrust again and again. He went to the point inside her where they were both arched back, and both had their mouths open, though his was a silent cry and hers a deafening keening, and it pushes the fine, thin, clear line between this pleasure and that pain. But his cock, nestling at the tip of her clit as he pulled out again fully, as hard as a rock but as soft as silk and with her clit throbbing and slick with juices, taunted her, and she said his name again and again._

_And every time she said his name, she followed it with a scream, and it drove both of them mad, how she'd beg his name sometimes and order it others, and eventually he had both his hands dug into the mattress, clawed through the sheets, and her ankles were locked around his waist, her hands scratching at his back painfully as she held her entire weight on him, and he simply bucked and thrust, pleasure rocking both of them as their hip bones collided with such force they both cried out in ecstatic agony, bruising - hell, they might have broken their hip bones, it wouldn't have made them stop._

_And the painful knot of tension and anguished elation inside of her broke, and she spit out, "Now," before the heat spinning through her insides at such speed it buzzed made every single part of her siezing and stretching in a wave, torrents of spiking, poisonous, sweet fire burning through her so she shook, her entirety trembling, without control anymore, and she collapsed, releasing him and falling to the bed, still twitching but still, arching her back but slowly coming downward._

_And then she'd said his name once more with the amount of adoration and admiration one usually reserves for the exceptionally holy to their dieties, and he'd dropped down lower, and bucked into her one, two, three, four times, thrusting, quick, short strokes, and she'd bucked again him, too, her body moving in resounding synchronization to his automatically, and only then had he been the one to say something, and he'd repeated her own last word; "Now."_

_His pupils, already dialated, grew so large she could barely see the silver orbs she'd fallen in love with anymore - but that was acceptable, because he was still looking at her, and looking at her as if she was a goddess, worshipping her like a convinced fool. His movements had grown insane, the hissing between his teeth louder and closer to a moan and/or her name but not quite breaking the barrier, and then, with one final, shriek-inducing thrust, she'd seen his lids flutter and all his breath exhale, and his back went stiff and his muscles all bulged and convulsed. And then he sighed her name and allowed it to subside as he fell to her side, his arm crossing hers at the elbow, both of their chests not covered by the sheets anymore, but still slick with sweat and heat._

"Fuck, no," she muttered, every aspect of her breaking, and she fell to her knees, bowing her head almost as if in prayer, her hands flying to her ears and her eyes squeezing shut, as if it would drown out the memories. But she knew what came next, or, rather, before, and as her memories worked backwards for a ways and then forwars through the important parts until it rewound again, she clutching at her head trying to rid herself of her thoughts, her ideas, her dreams. But she couldn't, and what was perhaps the most important memory came to her mind then, and luckily her hoarse throat and dry tongue couldn't produce her scream.

_"I don't understand," she said bluntly, facing him with her legs apart and her face set in stone, anger chruning below the wooden surface. As opposed to Draco, who was pacing the length of the room and red in the face. "You're angry because I'm spending time with my best friends."_

_"No, that's not... not it," he tried to explain, but failed again, trailing off and then releasing a grunt of frustration before tugging once at his hair and resuming his pacing._

_"So why are you angry?"_

_"I'm not angry!"_

_"Yes, you are!" she threw at him, acid creeping into her voice. "And I don't know why, so tell me!"_

_"Because I'm scared!"_

_"Of what?!" she demanded, her tone fiery as she took a step forward, her hands balling into fists at her side. "What are you scared of that made you so angry?! So I like being around Ron and Harry, they both have girlfriends and I have you, so what's to worry about?!"_

_"Weasley and you -"_

_"Had a three-year-long-or-so crushing period and then a six-months relationship, Draco," she hissed at him vehemently, using his name almost like a scathing insult. "And why are you scared of that? You know you're the one I want to be with, I'm with you right now, and you know I love you, so why the hell are they scared?!"_

_And then he paused and all fear and fury disappeared from him, and when she realized her, she deflated, her fingers going limp and her posture sagging when she clamped her hand over her mouth. He looked at her then, his gray eyes boring into hers, his eyebrows knitted together, and she could tell his heart was fluttering like hers in a way they hadn't since their first kiss. "You love me," he murmured then, and the words were a caress._

_She nodded mutely. It was all she could do._

_And then he'd crossed the space between them with three short bounds and gathered her in his arms, and she melted, clinging to him, her face in his chest and her hands pulling him closer as he rocked her back and forth soothingly. "And I love you," he said, as if realizing it for himself and loving the words he said, the taste of them on his tongue so desirable he had to repeat them as a fool would; "I love you."_

"Draco, you idiot, you fool, my Draco," she sobbed, feeling as if the wind had been kicked from her gut, bending over and leaning her head against the frozen stone of his headstone, the engravings below ringing out as she remembered everything.

And each new memory wracked her body, as she she grew closer to the beginning, closer to where it started, she could feel herself closing up, the the petals of a flower that blooms once a year, shutting its lips so it cannot speak again. With each old event that flashed into her, replaying in front of and behind her eyes, a petal shifted closed. It was her defense mechanism. She was shutting down, shutting up, getting the worst of it behind her so she could face another year. But the tears didn't stop coming when her words did, and neither did the memories, for each one was accompanied by a stinging, warm droplet that splashed onto the snow below her and melted itself a temporary hole in the glittering blanket.

When they'd had their first fight. A petal closed.

When they'd told the world about their relationship. A petal closed.

When they'd decided they did actually want to _have_ a relationship. A petal closed.

Their first kiss. A petal closed.

Their first hug. A petal closed.

When they'd decided they were friends. A petal closed.

When they'd started being civil to one another. A petal closed.

And that day, the very first day, when he'd walked into the Ministry as a new employee, and when he saw her, he'd said, (_like a fool_, as she never hesitated to remind him later,) "Granger, good to see you." A petal closed.

And the flower was sealed again, but she was still crying. The worst type of crying is when your eyes are cold from being wide open, when your throat is clear of any lumps, when your stomach is free of knots and when your head is cluttered with all of those things because that's when you're not actually crying. That's when your body is searching for something that could begin to cope with the agony and doing its best to help you, and failing. That's when your mind searches every single memory it has to try to find something that hurts as badly as you're hurting now so it can deal with it how it dealt with it then, and it finds nothing. The best it can do is when you cried over something before, so the tears fall; but you're so empty inside everywhere but your head it's all just triggered tear ducts and no real crying. That's the worst type of crying.

She had emptied everything on to him once more, like she had for so long so long ago. She'd cried out her fears, her troubles, her worries, her pains, and though this time he couldn't reassure her, he could still listen.

But he was gone and she couldn't get him back, and so she stood, not trembling now but moving with certainty, and she walked calmly out of the graveyard, not daring to disapparate within its grounds for fear of being traced back there. Though the townspeople never hesitated to tell what she'd done, she didn't want any more proof it had actually been over Draco rather than just anyone; if they knew it was Draco - or worse yet, found where he was burried, where she'd burried him herself, all alone - the lies she'd been telling about moving on would be all for naught. But when she got home, to the big manor with its Christmas Tree still up and protected by wards from the batte the day of the Death Eaters, the tears still didn't stop.

Maybe she was crying because she was empty. Maybe she was crying because she thought she was when in reality she was so full of things, so bottled up, even after hours of simply sitting and being compeltely open about everything. Maybe she was crying because she was empty and knew she couldn't stay that way.

Maybe she was crying because she missed Draco.

But it didn't matter, because just like that day with the Death Eaters, someone would swoop in to try and save them, but they'd be too late.

As always, she heard the doorbell ring just as she'd washed her face. She smiled at herself in the reflective surface of the water, and knew it looked real. She'd been using it for years. Behind that door were her family and friends, preparing for celebration and gifts and joy all around, but being careful, not saying anything. Because all those years ago, when they'd knocked at the door had fallen and they'd seen Draco throw himself in front of her only to collapse in a heap at her feet with the green light having hit him square on the chest, they'd managed to get her out safely, but she'd been damaged.

And it got worse all the time. It never got better. As she'd said once before, he'd been her passion, her desire, her longing. She still had motivation. But it wasn't _true_. She was always so serious, even when she pretended to be full of glee and happiness, that she knew she needed him to be a fool.

He'd been a fool about so much, made so many mistakes, grown from them, cared for her, cared for everyone, eventually. That's what she'd call him, and after the day she'd carved it into his headstone, she refused to call anyone else that. He was a fool, yes, but he'd saved her with his foolishness - but he'd also condemned her.

But she answered the door and grinned at the Potters and Weasleys and various others and flooded her huge home, and she never once let her gaurd down.

She was motivated to live. But she had to desire to. It was a fool's position, given only to one fool by another, for the sake one a fool's greatest strength and yet weakness, for it gives us the courage needed to pursure what we must, but not the endurance to survive it. Love.


End file.
